Poor Mojo's Newswire

The Scientific Institute in Cairo has been burned. It was the second oldest such institute outside Europe, after the one in Philadelphia. Some 200,000 rare books and manuscripts are abruptly gone. The military government of Egypt allegedly stationed snipers atop the building, who fired on demonstrators, putting the Scientific Institute in the crossfire of Egypt’s current political struggle. I discussed this institute, founded by Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, in my book, Napoleon’s Egypt. The loss of all these historical materials points to the dire need for the digitization of such collections without delay. Google is doing large scale digitization of printed books, but most of them exist in multiple copies in various repositories. It is hand written manuscripts that need to be digitized, since often there are only one or two copies surviving and they are easily lost. We lost much of the intellectual history of Najaf, Iraq, during the savage attack on that Shiite holy city by Saddam Hussein’s forces in spring of 1991. We lost much of the 20th century history of Iraq when the cabinet papers were burned during the Bush invasion, when SecDef Donald Rumsfeld declined to stop the looting, a crime I called cliocide. . . .

Leigh thought her date was going quite well, right up until the point, she says, when she was drugged and raped. It was her first time meeting Jeffrey Marsalis, a gregarious trauma surgeon who had contacted her through the online dating site Match.com. Tall, blue-eyed and engaging, Marsalis had taken her out in downtown Philadelphia, entertaining her with stories of life in the ER. "He seemed a little full of himself," Leigh recalls; still, she was having a good time. She slowly drank one beer, then a second. Their date was in its fourth hour when Marsalis ordered a carafe of white wine, and Leigh excused herself. "I would never think to be so cynical that I'd stand there and watch as he poured my drink," remembers Leigh, a striking blonde (who, like all accusers in this article, is identified by her middle name). When the 28-year-old accountant returned to her barstool, her glass of wine was waiting. Leigh took a sip. As she would later testify, the next thing Leigh remembers she was in a dark room, facedown on a bed—and Marsalis was anally raping her. The pain felt as if he were ripping her in two. Her limbs were leaden, her mind sluggish. "Stop, please stop," Leigh mumbled. Marsalis simply chuckled. Leigh slid back into unconsciousness but kept resurfacing that endless night to discover Marsalis violating her limp body. Finally, she opened her eyes to an apartment filled with late-morning light. "Good morning," Marsalis said, smiling and leaning in for a kiss; Leigh, stunned, kissed him back. "I had a wonderful time last night. I hope you did, too," she says he told her, staring into her eyes. Leigh felt groggy and confused as she pulled on her jeans. So when Marsalis walked Leigh to her car and suggested they get together again, Leigh heard herself say, "Sure." She was certain she hadn't gone to bed with her date of her own volition—and that she couldn't possibly have blacked out after barely three drinks—but her certainty was softening in the face of his chivalry. Am I reading the situation wrong? Leigh wondered as she drove herself home. Would a rapist act this nicely? . . .